COLUMBIA, The Duck River has been telling its story for thousands of years, moving quietly through the heart of Maury County on its way to the Tennessee River, carrying with it a biological richness that scientists still find astonishing. On June 12, 2026, that story gets a screening. Harpeth Conservancy is bringing the documentary film "Down the Duck" to Columbia for its first public showing in the watershed itself, and there is something genuinely moving about that choice of venue.
The film, produced by Archaea Productions in partnership with Nashville Public Television, follows septuagenarian photographer John Guider as he canoes all 270 miles of the Duck River from its headwaters to its mouth. Along the way, the documentary weaves together voices of ecologists, historians, local residents, and conservation advocates, building a portrait of a river that is both beautiful and embattled. The Duck River is widely recognized as one of the most aquatically biodiverse rivers in North America, home to roughly 50 native mussel species and dozens of fish found nowhere else on earth. It is one of Maury County's most extraordinary natural assets, and most residents pass over it on their daily commute without fully knowing what lies beneath.
Harpeth Conservancy noted in its announcement that there is something especially meaningful about this first public screening happening right here in the Duck River watershed. That is an understatement. Columbia sits along the banks of a river that deserves the kind of reverence this film appears designed to inspire. Conservation of the Duck is not just an environmental cause; it is a responsibility to the generations who will come after us, the farmers who depend on its water, the families who fish its banks, and the children who will one day need someone to have cared enough to protect it.
The screening will be held in Columbia at The Mulhouse on June 12. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the film begins at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free, and tickets are available at the link below. If you have ever stood on a bridge over the Duck and felt something you could not quite name, this is the evening to go put words to it. https://wl.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=E12925&id=245